Based on two volumes of misery memoir The Kid unflinchingly charts the abusive
childhood suffered by Kevin Lewis. Rating: * * *

In contrast to the dubious veracity of I'm Still Here, another of this week's releases, we can be rather more certain that the horrific events depicted in The Kid really did occur. Based on two volumes of misery memoir, the film charts the abusive childhood suffered by Kevin Lewis, who is later duped into a career as a bare-knuckle fighter and then, as a young businessman, savagely exploited by a bunch of underworld hardmen he had previously regarded as friends.

Nick Moran — like Casey Affleck, an actor-turned-director — marshals his relentlessly grim material unflinchingly, and Rupert Friend, as the adult Kevin, is engaging and convincing in a complex role.

However, undoubtedly the most memorable performance comes from Natascha McElhone. Normally so elegantly, effortlessly graceful, here she is almost unrecognisable as Kevin’s monstrous mother. A chain-smoking, greasy-haired harridan in a housecoat, she bites him, beats him with a poker, forces his fingers into a mangle. One morning, with his head bleeding from a wound she has inflicted, she bawls at him helpfully: “Now clean yerself up and f--- off to school.”